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Quotes from Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department — Dean Acheson

1893–1971 United States

← All quotes by Dean Acheson

25 quotes

The experiences of the years...have brought the country, particularly its young people, to a mood of depression, disillusion, and withdrawal from the effort to affect the world.

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

a "mixture of frustration and progress is the daily grind of foreign affairs."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

Acheson's State Department "comrades...played a vital role in setting the main lines of American foreign policy for many years to come and...they may feel in their hearts that it was nobly done."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

"It is a mistake to interpret too literally and sweepingly the poet's admonition that things are not what they seem. Sometimes they are, and it is often essential to survival to know when they are and when they are not."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

"There is perhaps nothing more important in the world today than the steadiness and consistency of the foreign policy of this Republic. Too much depends on the United States for us to indulge in the luxury of either undue pessimism or premature optimism."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Dean Acheson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.